


Tāruarua

by beaches_at_treasure_island



Series: In which Maori is slaughtered [8]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It of Sorts, From the beginning, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 14:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5788645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaches_at_treasure_island/pseuds/beaches_at_treasure_island
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Slade wasn't gone for all that time? What if things had been different?</p><p>Starts when Oliver comes back from the island.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tāruarua

Since Amanda Waller had left Oliver back on Lian Yu with nothing but his hood, his bow and the contents of the island, living had become more difficult. He had nobody. He was alone but for the plants and animals that inhabited this hell, this Purgatory. The terrain was rough and the hunting was simple, but Oliver felt unfulfilled. Luckily, Waller had let the shipwrecked man in on when he could expect his next way to escape. He expected she would have kept her lips shut, leaving Oliver to rot on Lian Yu, if not for her desire to always keep her word. In return for his most recent mission, Waller was allowing Oliver to return home.

Oliver ran through the heavily forested land, having spotted the ship not too far off. He didn’t know when his next chance would come; he would not miss this one. He found his weapons, lit his arrow and aimed true, releasing it into the carefully crafted pile of wood. The dry structure burst into flames, catching the fishermen’s attention, as Oliver had planned. As the boat approached, Oliver knew he had survived. He was almost home.

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Days passed before he could be released by Chinese authorities to return to the states, to Starling City. He was looked over by doctor after doctor, and that didn’t stop when he arrived back in his hometown. Oliver stared across the city from the hospital high-rise, stared out at the city he used to know so well. He tuned out the muffled voices of the doctor and his mother. It had been so long, so hard, and now he was here. Even after all the pain, all the torture and killing and heartbreak, here he was – home again.

The door to his hospital room opened but Oliver didn’t turn. He was lost in his memories. Despite all the hurt Slade had put him through, Oliver couldn’t help but wish things had turned out differently. Slade was his _ipo_ , his love, and he missed him dearly. Slade had been The One, and even if Oliver ever found someone else to love, they would never make him feel the way his _ipo_ had. He felt tears stinging at his eyes.

“Oliver?” His mother called softly, drawing his wandering mind.

Oliver blinked, attempting to will the tears away, but seeing his mother only brought them back tenfold. “Mom,” he whispered, tone loaded with all the things his lips weren’t able to say, all his hope and joy and longing and love.

Moira tried to smile, but Oliver looked so dead to her in ways that she had never imagined. His very soul looked like it had been ripped apart. He was hardened and hurt and so very different to her baby boy, the one who had boarded his father’s yacht all those years ago. But he was there. Her child had come back to her, alive.

“Oh,” she said in a shaky voice, “My beautiful boy.” She hugged him tightly, sobbing a muttered, “Thank God,” into his shoulder and kissing his cheek.

\------------------------------------------------

Oliver had been forced to stay overnight at the hospital but early the next morning, Moira and her driver arrived to take her son home. When the driver attempted to carry in Oliver’s wooden trunk, he politely refused help, lifting it easily and following his mother inside.

She was going on about how his room had been untouched these past five years as she opened the familiar front doors. As he stepped inside, he looked around, his nostalgia coming back full force. This was his home, the one he grew up in with his sister, where his parents had hosted parties, and his friends visited before causing mayhem and mischief.

“Oliver!” A large, dark British man came from the sitting room. He looked familiar, too, but not in the way that the home did. Oliver set his trunk on the floor carefully. This man was a co-worker of his father’s before... Before. “It’s damn good to see you,” he said in a friendly way. When Oliver played up the blank, ignorant boy, the man added, “It’s Walter, Walter Steele?”

Oliver kept himself from flinching when his mother placed an unthinking hand on his back. “You remember Walter,” she told him. “He was your father’s friend, from the company.”

Oliver pretended recognition as he spied Raisa from his peripherals. He nodded and walked past Walter, over to the housemaid. “It’s good to see you, Raisa,” Oliver said truthfully. She had been more of a mother to him than Moira at most times, and he had missed her more than he’d expected.

Raisa grinned up at Oliver, voice trembling happily as she replied, “Welcome home, Mr. Oliver.” She glanced over at Moira and Walter, and added, “Mr. Merlyn called. He wants to join you for dinner.”

As Moira answered Raisa, Oliver glanced up at the upper levels. He had heard a door open. If he wasn’t mistaken... It would be the person he had missed most on that godforsaken island. He smiled and disregarded the others as he walked over to the foot of the stairs. Thea rounded the landing and Oliver broke into a grin.

“Hey, sis,” Oliver greeted his shocked little sister.

She stared back at him like she couldn’t believe he was real before running down the stairs. She was practically in tears as she reached him, saying, “I knew it; I knew you were alive.” Thea hugged him in a way that felt like she was trying to make up for the years she hadn’t been able to, arms gripping him desperately, confirming his existence. “I missed you so much, Ollie.”

“You were with me the whole time,” Oliver told her, trying not to cry himself. “There wasn’t a day that I didn’t wish I was with you, Thea. Not a day.”

\------------------------

Oliver went to his room a short while later, toting his trunk along dutifully. His mother sent him up to get some rest before dinner. Despite his most valiant efforts, Oliver could not sleep. He took a shower instead, hoping to calm his nerves and sooth his tense muscles.

His room was so odd to him now, the leftovers of a child, of a boy not yet ready to become a man. He had been so immature, so irresponsible before. Ollie had been soft, childish. He had no muscles, no stubble, no scars. Ollie had been the boy, stranded on an island with no survival skills and no tools to help him. Oliver had been shaped from the broken, tortured ashes of that boy. He had been beaten, scarred...loved. He had grown rough, and grown up. Oliver was the man crafted harshly from the boy who couldn’t survive Purgatory, and he was so different to him. Almost completely opposite, if he told true.

Oliver dressed swiftly but with care. He knew he couldn’t worry his family, not so soon after he had returned to them. He would portray the perfect son, the prodigal child returning to the lap of luxury. He would play his part and do his duty, fulfilling the promise he had made to his father.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> Maori to English  
> ipo – love(r)


End file.
